THE STRANGER
When Mrs. Chattaway and Cris drove off in the dog-cart, George Ryle did
not follow them down the avenue, but turned to pursue his way round the
house, which would take him to the fields: a shorter cut to his own land
than the road. For a long time after his father's death, George could
not bear to go through the field which had been so fatal to him; but he
had lived down the feeling with the aid of that great reconciler--Time.
Happening to cast his eyes on the grounds as he skirted them, which lay
on this side the Hold, he saw Rupert Trevlyn. Leaping a dwarf hedge of
azaroles, he hastened to him.
"Well, old fellow! Taking a nap?"
Rupert opened his half-closed eyes, and looked round. "I thought it was
Cris again!" he exclaimed. "He was here just now."
"Cris has gone out with his mother in the dog-cart. I don't like the
horse he is driving, though."
"Is it that new horse he has been getting?"
"Yes; the one Allen had to sell."
"What's the matter with it?" asked Rupert. "I saw it carrying Allen one
day, and thought it a beautiful animal!"
"It has a vicious temper, as I have been given to understand. And I
believe it has never been properly broken in for driving. How do you
feel to-day, Rupert?"
"No great shakes. I wish I was as strong as you, George."
George laughed pleasantly; and his voice, when he spoke, had a soothing
sound in it. "So you may be, by the time you are as old as I am. Why,
you have hardly done growing yet, Rupert. There's plenty of time for you
to get strong."
"What brings you up here, George? Anything particular?"
"I saw Amelia to-day, and brought a message from her to her mother.
Caroline is coming to us for the harvest-home, and Amelia wants to come
too."
"Oh, they'll let her," cried Rupert. "The girls can do just as they
like."
He, Rupert, leaned his chin on his hand, and began thinking of Amelia
Chattaway. She was the oldest of the three younger children, and was at
first under the tuition of Maude. But Maude could do nothing with her,
the girl liking and taking; in fact she was too old both for Maude's
control and instruction, and it was thought well to place her at a good
school at Barmester, the school at which Caroline Ryle was being
educated. Somehow Rupert's comforts were never added to by the presence
of Amelia in the house, and he might have given way to a hope that she
would not come home, had he been of a disposition to encourage such
feelings.
Octave, who had discerned George Ryle from the windows of the Hold, came
out to them, her pink parasol shading her face from the sun. A short
time and Miss Trevlyn came home and joined them; next came Maude and her
charges. It was quite a merry gathering. Miss Trevlyn unbent from her
coldness, as she could do sometimes; Octave was all smiles and suavity,
and every one, except Rupert, seemed at ease. Altogether, George Ryle
was beguiled into doing what could not be often charged upon
him--spending a good part of an afternoon in idleness.
But he went away at last. And as he was turning into the first
field--never called anything but "the Bull field," by the country
people, from the hour of Mr. Ryle's accident--he encountered Jim
Sanders, eager and breathless.
"What's the matter?" asked George. "What do you want here?"
"I was speeding up to the Hold to tell 'em, sir. There's been an
accident with Mr. Cris's dog-cart. I thought I'd warn the men up at his
place."
"What accident?" hastily asked George, mentally beholding one sole
object, and that was Mrs. Chattaway.
"I don't know yet, sir, what it is. I was in the road by the gate, when
a horse came tearing along with broken shafts after it. It was that
horse of Allen's which I saw Mr. Cris driving out an hour ago in his
dog-cart, and Madam along of him. So I cut across the fields at once."
"You can go on," said George; "some of the men will be about. Should you
see Miss Diana, or any of the young ladies, take care you say nothing to
them. Do you hear?"
"I'll mind, sir."
Jim Sanders hastened out of the field on his way to the back premises of
the Hold, and George flew onwards. When he gained the road, he looked up
and down, but could see no traces of the accident. Nothing was in sight.
Which way should he turn? Where had it occurred? He began reproaching
himself for not asking Jim Sanders which way the horse had been coming
from. As he halted in indecision some one suddenly came round the
turning of the road lower down. It was Cris Chattaway, with a rueful
expression and a gig-whip in his hand.
George made but few strides towards him. "What is the worst, Cris? Let
me know it."
"I'll have him taken in charge and prosecuted, as sure as a gun," raved
Cris. "I will. It's infamous that these things should be allowed in the
public road."
"What--the horse?" exclaimed George.
"Horse be hanged!" politely returned Cris, whose irritation was
excessive. "It wasn't the horse's fault. Nothing could go steadier and
better than he went all the way and back again, as far as this----"
"Where's Mrs. Chattaway?" interrupted George.
"On the bank, down there. She's all right; only shaken a bit. The
fellow's name was on the thing, and I have copied it down, and I've sent
a man off for a constable. I'll teach him that he can't go about the
country, plying his trade and frightening gentlemen's horses with
impunity."
In spite of Cris's incoherence and passion, George contrived to gather
an inkling of the facts. They had taken a short, easy drive down the
lower road and through Barbrook, the horse going (according to Cris)
beautifully. But on the road home, in that lonely part between the Hold
and Trevlyn Farm, there stood a razor-grinder with his machine, grinding
a knife. Whether the whirr of the wheel did not please the horse;
whether it was the aspect of the machine; or whether it might be the
razor-grinder himself, a somewhat tattered object in a fur cap, the
animal no sooner came near, than he began to dance and backed towards
the ditch. Cris did his best. He was a good whip and a fearless one; but
he could not conquer. The horse turned Mrs. Chattaway into the ditch,
relieved his mind by a few kicks, and started off with part of the
shafts behind him.
"Are you much hurt, dear Mrs. Chattaway?" asked George, tenderly, as he
bent over her.
She looked up with a smile, but her face was of a death-like whiteness.
Fortunately, the ditch, a wide one, was dry; and she sat on the sloping
bank, her feet resting in it. The dog-cart lay near, and several gazers,
chiefly labouring men, stood around, helplessly staring. The
razor-grinder was protesting _his_ immunity from blame, and the hapless
machine remained in its place untouched, drawn close to the pathway on
the opposite side of the road.
"You need not look at me so anxiously, George," Mrs. Chattaway replied,
the smile still on her face. "I don't believe I am hurt. One of my
elbows is smarting, but I really feel no pain anywhere. I am shaken, of
course; but that's not much. I wish I had taken your advice, not to sit
behind that horse."
"Cris says he went beautifully, until he was frightened."
"Did Cris say so? It appeared to me that he had trouble with him all the
way; but Cris knows, of course. He has gone to the Hold to bring the
carriage for me, but I don't care to sit here to be stared at longer
than I can help," she added, with a half-smile.
George leaped into the ditch, and partly helped and partly lifted her up
the bank, and took her on his arm. She walked slowly, however, and
leaned heavily upon him. When they reached the lodge, old Canham was
gazing up and down the road, and Ann came out, full of consternation.
They had seen the horse with the broken shafts gallop past.
"Then there's no bones broke, thank Heaven!" said Ann, with tears in her
meek eyes.
She drew forward her father's armchair before the open door, and Mrs.
Chattaway sat down in it, feeling she must have air, she said. "If I had
but a drop o' brandy for Madam!" cried old Canham, as he stood near
leaning all his weight on his stick.
George caught up the words. "I will go to the Hold and get some." And
before Mrs. Chattaway could stop him, or say that she would prefer not
to take the brandy he was away.
Almost at the same moment they heard the fast approach of a horse, and
the master of Trevlyn Hold rode in at the gates. To describe his
surprise when he saw his wife sitting, an apparent invalid, in old
Canham's chair, and old Canham and Ann standing in evident
consternation, almost as pale as she was, would be a difficult task. He
reined in so quickly that his horse was flung back on its haunches.
"Is anything the matter? Has Madam been taken ill?"
"There has been an accident, sir," answered Ann Canham, with a meek
curtsey. "Mr. Christopher was driving out Madam in the dog-cart, and
they were thrown out."
Mr. Chattaway got off his horse. "How did it happen?" he asked his wife,
an angry expression crossing his face. "Was it Cris's fault? I hate that
random driving of his!"
"I am not hurt, James; only a little shaken," she replied, with
gentleness. "Cris was not to blame. There was a razor-grinder in the
road, grinding knives, and it frightened the horse."
"Which horse was he driving?" demanded Mr. Chattaway.
"A new one. One he bought from Allen."
The reply did not please Mr. Chattaway. "I told Cris he should not buy
that horse," he angrily said. "Is the dog-cart injured?"
It was apparent from the question that Mr. Chattaway had not passed the
_debris_ on the road. He must have come the other way, or perhaps across
the common. Mrs. Chattaway did not dare to say she believed the dog-cart
was very much injured. "The shafts are broken," she said, "and something
more."
"Where did it occur?" growled Mr. Chattaway.
"A little lower down the road. George Ryle came up soon after it
happened, and I walked here with him. Cris went on to the Hold to send
the carriage, but I shall get home without it."
"It might have been worse, Squire," interposed old Canham, who, as a
dependant of Trevlyn Hold, felt compelled sometimes to give the "Squire"
his title to his face, though he never would, or did, behind his back.
"Nothing hardly happens to us, sir, in this world, but what's more eased
to us than it might be."
Mr. Chattaway had stood with his horse's bridle over his arm. "Would you
like to walk home with me now?" he asked his wife. "I can lead the
horse."
"Thank you, James. I think I must rest here a little longer. I had only
just got here when you came up."
"I'll send for you," said Mr. Chattaway. "Or come back myself when I
have left the horse at home. Mr. Cris will hear more than he likes from
me about this business."
"Such an untoward thing has never happened to Mr. Cris afore, sir,"
observed Mark Canham. "There's never a better driver than him for miles
round. The young heir, now, he's different: a bit timid, I fancy,
and----"
"Who?" burst forth Mr. Chattaway, taking his foot from the stirrup, for
he was about to mount, and hurling daggers at Mark Canham. "The young
heir! To whom do you dare apply that title!"
Had the old man purposely launched a sly shaft at the master of Trevlyn
Hold, or had he spoken inadvertently? He hastened to repair the damage
as he best could.
"Squire, I be growing old now--more by sickness, though, than by
age--and things and people gets moithered together in my mind. In the
bygone days, it was a Rupert Trevlyn that was the heir, and I can't at
all times call to mind that this Rupert Trevlyn is not so: the name is
the same, you see. What has set me to make such a stupid mistake this
afternoon, I can't tell, unless it was the gentleman's words that was
here but an hour ago. He kept calling Master Rupert the heir; and he
wouldn't call him nothing else."
Mr. Chattaway's face grew darker. "What gentleman was that, pray?"
"I never see him before in my life, sir," returned old Canham. "He was a
stranger to the place, and asked all manner of questions about it. He
called Master Rupert the heir, and I stopped him, saying he made a
mistake, for Master Rupert was not the heir. And he answered I was right
so far, that Master Rupert, instead of being the heir of Trevlyn Hold,
was its master and owner. I couldn't help staring at him when he said
it."
Chattaway felt as if his blood were curdling. Was this the first act in
the great drama he had so long dreaded? "Where did he come from? What
sort of a man was he?" he mechanically asked, all symptoms of anger
dying away in his sudden fear.
Old Canham shook his head. "I don't know nothing about where he's from,
sir. He came strolling inside the gates, as folks strange to a place
will do, looking about 'em just for curiosity's sake. He saw me sitting
at the open window, and he asked what place this was, and I told him it
was Trevlyn Hold. He said he thought so, that he had been walking about
looking for Trevlyn Hold, and he leaned his arm upon the sill, and put
nigh upon a hundred questions to me."
"What were the questions?" eagerly rejoined Mr. Chattaway.
"I should be puzzled to tell you half of 'em, sir, but they all bore
upon Trevlyn Hold. About the Squire's death, and the will, and the
succession; about everything in short. At last I told him that I didn't
know the rightful particulars myself, and he'd better go to you or Miss
Diana."
Mrs. Chattaway stole a glance at her husband. Her face was paler than
the accident had made it; with a more alarmed pallor. The impression
clinging to her mind, and of which she had spoken to her husband the
previous night--that Rupert Trevlyn was on the eve of being restored to
his rights--seemed terribly strong upon her now.
"He was a tall, thin, strange-looking man, with a foreign look about
him, and a red umberella," continued old Canham. "A long white beard he
had, sir, like a goat, and an odd hat made of cloth or crape, or some
mourning stuff. His tongue wasn't quite like an English tongue, either.
I shouldn't wonder but he was a lawyer, Squire: no one else wouldn't
surely think of putting such a string of questions----"
"Did he--did he put the questions as an official person might put them?"
rapidly interrupted Mr. Chattaway.
Old Canham hesitated; at a loss what precise reply to give. "He put 'em
as though he wanted answers to 'em," returned he at length. "He said a
word or two, sir, that made me think he'd been intimate once with the
young Squire, Mr. Joe, and he asked whether his boy or his girl had
growed up most like him. He wondered, he said, whether he should know
either of 'em by the likeness, when he came to meet 'em, as he should do
to-day or to-morrow."
"And what more?" gasped Mr. Chattaway.
"There was nothing more, Squire, in particular. He took his elbow off
the window-sill, and went through the gates again down the road. It
seemed to me as if he had come into the neighbourhood for some special
purpose connected with the questions."
It seemed so to some one else also. When the master of Trevlyn Hold
mounted his horse and rode him slowly through the avenue towards home, a
lively fear, near and terrible, had replaced that vague dread which had
so long lain latent in his heart.